Progress: 82%… 89%…
“Claire! I know what you’re doing!” Derek roared, completely dropping his concerned-husband act. He crashed into the door again. The hinges screamed. The lamp base began sliding across the polished hardwood.
“Hold it, Harper! Just ten more seconds!” I shouted, watching the green bar crawl across the screen.
93%… 96%… 98%…
With one final deafening crash, the door frame splintered. The heavy mahogany door burst inward, sending Harper sprawling onto the carpet.
Derek stood in the doorway, his tuxedo jacket gone, his eyes wide and wild like a trapped animal. He saw the laptop. He saw the progress bar.
He lunged across the room. I reached for the computer, but he struck me across the jaw with the back of his hand. I hit the floor, tasting fresh copper.
Derek seized Harper’s laptop and violently smashed it against the marble vanity. The screen fractured into a web of dead pixels, the machine sparking before going completely dark.
He stood over the wreckage, breathing heavily as he adjusted his cuffs. Looking down at me, he wore a cold, victorious smirk.
“You really thought you were smart, didn’t you?” he sneered, pulling his phone from his pocket. “It’s 9:45 PM. You don’t have a computer. You don’t have a file. And in two hours, I own everything your daddy ever built.”
He reached down, grabbed my arm, and roughly pulled me to my feet.
“Now. We are going back out there. You are going to smile. And you are going to open your banking app.”
I glanced at the shattered laptop. Then I looked at Derek.
I let my shoulders sag, forcing tears into my eyes and playing the broken, defeated woman he believed I was.
“Okay,” I whispered, deliberately allowing my voice to crack. “You win.”
Derek chuckled, a dry, sinister sound. “Good girl. Let’s go rejoin our guests.”
He turned toward the exit, failing to notice the look Harper and I exchanged. He also missed the way Harper quickly checked her Apple Watch.
Because Derek didn’t understand how cloud syncing worked.
The file had reached 100% exactly one second before he smashed the screen. : THE ILLUMINATION
